Cross-cultural Adaptation Of South African Students In China And India

The primary purpose of this study was to examine Cross-cultural adaptation process among South African students’sojourners living in China and India. It is built on the facts that adaptation is the changes taking place because of contact with groups of culturally dissimilar people and social influences. It attempts to identify the cross-cultural adaptation process and investigate the influential variables as well as the adjustment outcome variables of cross-cultural adaptation, to understand the similarities and differences between the two host countries. To achieve this quantitative study approach was used and data was analyzed using SPSS17.0.In this study there are135South African international student sojourners including (75in China and60in India). The results showed that students in India adapted well than students in China. There is no gender difference on cross-cultural adaptation and adjustment results. Among the students in China sociocultural and psychological adaptation are positively correlated with the adjustment outcomes. The three dimension of personality being:open-mindedness, cultural empathy and social initiative are positively correlated with adaptation and adjustment outcomes. Language competencies and communication self-efficacy are also positively correlated with adaptation and adjustment outcomes, but among students in India the above relationship are not fully proven. Among South African students in China, language competencies will positively predict psychological and sociocultural adaptation, attitude to South African cultural would negatively predict life satisfaction, and communication self-efficacy will predict psychological health. Among students in India, language competencies and open-mindedness will predict psychological health, and also communication self-efficacy will predict psychological adaptation. Except for students in India the life satisfaction could predict study performance and none of the other adaptation results could predict adjustment outcomes in both countries population.